Jan Tabor in the Tugendhat Villa: A Treatise on the Uniqueness of Relationships

Concrete Architecture / Abstract Architectures

Barcelona Pavilion / Tugendhat House

Lilly Reich / Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Treatise on the Uniqueness of Relationships

Lilly Reich and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were one of the most successful yet enigmatic couples in the history of world architecture. There is more speculation than scientifically supported knowledge about Lilly Reich's influence on the suddenly radical vision of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe regarding modern architecture, about the way they collaborated on the German Pavilion for the World Expo in Barcelona in 1929 and on the Tugendhat House in Brno in 1930. The actual contributions of Lilly Reich to many exemplary buildings and exhibitions by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe are essentially also a matter of speculation.
The first part of the lecture will summarize what we do not know and why, and will expand on what we think are new speculations. The second part of the lecture will address the strange fact that although the Barcelona Pavilion and the Brno house were de facto conceived and built simultaneously, and in fact form a single conceptual whole, art historians and modern architecture have not yet made any serious attempts to depict and analyze this unique phenomenon in the history of architecture. The ideological and ideological connectedness of both buildings and the uniqueness of this bond lies in the dialectical continuity of abstract architecture to concrete architecture, the continuity of a residential house to an exhibition pavilion.

Jan Tabor, born in 1944, is an architecture theorist, exhibition curator, cultural publicist, co-founder of the Forum for Experimental Architecture in Vienna and Kunstkolchoz in Mikulovice near Znojmo. He is currently working on the project "Urbo Kune, the capital of the European States" and on the urban opera "One Day and One Hour in Urbo Kune," which will be presented in May 2015 at the "Seven Bridges" festival in Cologne. Together with students of art sciences at Masaryk University in Brno, he is preparing an exhibition "Convolute 2, Overloaded Classic" for Kunstkolchoz in Mikulovice. He lives in Vienna and in Mikulovice near Znojmo.
 
The lecture will take place on Monday, December 1, 2014, at 5 PM (a tour of the villa is not part of the lecture). The lecture will be in Czech. This last lecture of 2014, which has been dedicated to lectures by foreign experts, will be preceded by a small piano concert in the main living area of the villa.

Admission is 100 CZK; students and seniors 50 CZK

Reservation for the lecture is necessary by phone: +420 515 511 015 / 017 or via email: info@tugendhat.eu (limited capacity of 70 persons).

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